


Until It Blooms

by lilacsigil



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: F/F, Gardens & Gardening, Past Abuse, Post-Canon, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/pseuds/lilacsigil
Summary: Tisarwat was fascinated by Piat's gloves.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themistoklis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/gifts).



Tisarwat was fascinated by Piat's gloves. Not so much the gloves she wore off-duty, the white cloth smooth and bright against her dark skin, but the gloves she wore to work. Piat's horticultural gloves were metallic and beautiful, made of thousands of tiny metal scales, shimmering as she worked. Her strong hands tied and bent and plucked, tiny cold-light lasers between the third and fourth fingers of each hand cutting away at foliage and stems when required.

"Why this one?" Tisarwat twirled a severed flower between her fingers. It wasn't a flower she'd seen before with these eyes, though of course it was in her long memory as a rose. It was white, with five large regular petals and five sepals below and the stem had tiny prickles on it. The petals felt unnervingly like very soft skin. 

Tisarwat's attempts to learn horticultural terms had been rather limited by the immense amount of work to be done rebuilding Station, and the Garden in particular. Mercy of Kalr had been very helpful sharing her databanks, but Tisarwat's brain was overcrowded already and studying wasn't as easy as it had once been. Piat hadn't been allowed to do physical work in the Garden before the Republic, but she had studied as a horticulturalist even as her job consisted of filing reports, bringing tea and being generally ornamental. There was no time for that these days, and Piat had gladly got to work. 

Piat dropped several more of the roses in the organic matter bin. "See how tightly the petals are growing? Normally we would encourage that for aesthetic reasons, but it means that the plant won't fruit. Have you ever been served Red Nebula tea?"

It was a common variety, popular among the young for its sweet taste and deep red tones. Tisarwat maintained a secret fondness for it despite its juvenile connotations; she hadn't had any since her brain had been scrambled with Anaander's, who considered it too plebeian to even consider.

"Yes, of course. My academy served it frequently. Is this the fruit that flavours it?"

Piat judiciously severed several more of the flowers, her scaled gloves flashing in the jury-rigged lights that beamed down from the patched hole in the dome. "It is. More importantly, it's a rich source of nutrients for the immune system."

Tisarwat nodded. "Is it true that many of the citizens of the Undergarden aren't vaccinated?"

Piat looked at her sideways, through her stubby, thick eyelashes. "Station believes so. Your friend Medic is making vaccines on Mercy of Kalr but that won't cover everybody, or everything, and so many Radch citizens are eager to visit."

The phrase still felt wrong to Tisarwat – Radch had meant citizen, citizen had meant Radch – but it came smoothly from Piat's mouth. 

Tisarwat held the organic waste can for Piat as she stretched over the bridge rail to cut a few more of the blooms. She was wishing her conversation was as effortless and confident as Piat's was these days, when she realised that Piat had parted her lips to speak several times without actually getting the words out. 

"Station tells me that the first batch of the new Daughter of Fishes tea is on board. Would you care to try it with me?"

Tisarwat jumped, still staring at Piat's lips. The older part of her brain was laughing at her, but her body was still young and hormone-driven, and easily overrode that with a blush that would be visible on even Piat's skin. 

"Yes! I would like that very much! My next shift doesn't begin until 2600 hours."

"Wonderful. Then I invite you to my quarters at 2400 hours, though I must apologise in advance for their condition."

"No apology is required, and I'm sure Station would not want you to apologise," Tisarwat managed, somewhat gracefully, then fled, her cheeks burning. 

"I had no idea the tea plantation had resumed operation so quickly," One Bo Four told Tisarwat, carefully polishing Tisarwat's pins. Tisarwat had had a ridiculous number of them, each in their place, but since serving on Mercy of Kalr had reduced their number to a more appropriate six. While it would normally be inappropriate for a lieutenant to have more pins than her captain, Breq Mianaai had taken pin choice to a minimalist extreme, as she did many things, and if they all took that line nobody would be able to wear more than their House pins, not even mourning pins or family tokens. Therefore, the lieutenants had together settled on the sensible number of six, so that the decades could at least wear their House pins, any mourning obligations and a few more of their own choice. Tisarwat had previously worn forty-eight pins, including tokens from the top six of her graduating class, and she was rather embarrassed about that now. Her Bos had never said a word, of course.

"The tea plantation never really ceased operations, once the strike was over – it's more that the old plantation has restructured as part of the Republic. We are hoping that Athoek tea will become a major export again."

"But first a connoisseur must test her product?" Bo Four asked.

"Indeed. Or, in this case, the plantation is trying to fulfil what remains of its old orders. The Captain insisted, as she doesn't want to have to return currency if it can be avoided."

Bo Four helped Tisarwat into her uniform jacket, the pins gleaming brightly. 

"I am sure that Daughter of Fishes will be up to its usual standard."

"Let's hope so," Tisarwat frowned. Piat was taking quite a gamble serving it for the first time in front of an outsider. Or perhaps, and more likely, it was a gesture of faith in the new regime, which her own mother, the station administrator, had publically acknowledged. 

Piat had moved her quarters from the upper levels, where she had been near to her mother and Fosyf Denche, to smaller quarters near the Garden, technically in the Undergarden. They had been flooded in the disastrous attack on the dome, but the area had since been cleaned – partially by Tisarwat and her decade – and citizens had moved in. Two children were playing a complicated game involving hopping around a large piece of waste plastic in one direction, then changing legs and hopping the other way.

"Hop one, hop two,  
Pinch the leaf, the pale first harvest  
Hop three, hop four,  
In the basket the little fish can't bite."

They sang in Raswar, so Tisarwat wasn't entirely sure she understood it, but she smiled and waved to the children anyway. They pointed at her eyes and grinned back. 

"Pretty!" said the younger one in Radchaai, before they both dissolved in giggles at their boldness. 

Tisarwat swept into a magnificent bow – and how that rankled part of her, to be bowing to dirty low-class children – which only made them giggle more. 

Piat opened the door a moment before Tisarwat arrived. Station must have told her. She was not wearing her gardening gloves now, but her long white gloves. Her colourful sleeves, though voluminous, were quite translucent, and Tisarwat could see, veiled, a small strip of deep brown skin, lightly dotted with pale scars. Tisarwat wondered how that happened and why she hadn't corrected them, slightly dazed at seeing Piat's almost-bare arm. After a moment, she realised that she had not said a word, and instead smiled.

"Yes. Please, come in," Piat replied, stepping back from her doorway to allow Tisarwat entry.

Though she had thought Piat had simply been polite about the state of her quarters, they were in fact a mess, something that Tisarwat's ship-bound eye picked up immediately. No-one on board Mercy of Kalr would ever, ever stuff their quarters full like this, piles of fabric lying around, spilling from over-full drawers and dressers. Still, part of Tisarwat could remember her childhood bedroom, planetside, and it had looked similar, less the water damage, until she'd first returned from the Academy and decided to put aside childish things. Well, most of them. 

Piat spread her hands wide in further apology. "I am sorry. As you know, I have moved into smaller quarters to be closer to the Garden."

Smiling, Tisarwat took a seat on one of the large cushions that were in one of the few clear areas, around a low table made of real wood. A few of the roses Piat had trimmed were in a small vase, just off-centre so that the flowers nodded towards the guest's place. "It's only a surprise to those who have been living on a ship. We have hardly any possessions there."

Piat sat too, her gown floating out around her as she lowered herself down. The volume of fabric on a person as broad as Piat was a symphony of colour, like the Garden itself. "You would be appalled at my mother's guesthouse downwell. So much space, so many things to fill it!"

"I once lived on a planet, too. I would not be appalled in the slightest." Tisarwat made a rueful face. "Though my decade might be, if they happened upon my childhood room. They think I'm young but hard-working. They don't need to see my ten-year collection of festival garlands and those little – I don't know if you have them here – those little toy moths with the flapping silver wings they give out at the Festival of Night every year. I had tens of them!"

Piat turned and collected her tea set from a low shelf. "Moths, really? A lot of this is clothing. Raughd –" she cleared her throat, "Raughd encouraged me to wear lots of different things. And if she really liked them, she would take them and have them tailored to fit her."

"But she could have bought any number of outfits herself."

It was Piat's turn to make a rueful face. "That wasn't as good as having mine. You don't want to talk about her, though."

Tisarwat looked about the room. "How much of this is clothing the former Daughter of the House made you buy?" She rather enjoyed lacing the respectful title with the bitter poison of "former". 

"More than half, certainly."

Tisarwat smiled, thinking of the demented anger that rose up in the back of her brain when she bowed to those dirty children. "I think the Undergarden would appreciate a donation of such fine items. While I doubt there's anyone of your stature there, if a tailor could make them fit the former Daughter of the House, I'm sure she could do similar work for others."

Bright laughter filled the room: it was the first time Tisarwat had really heard such a sound, genuine and full, from Piat. "Of course!" Piat said. "What a wonderful idea. Do you mean right now?"

"Yes, right now. Station, is there a large container about, suitable for packing clothing?"

"I shall have it sent to you immediately," Station replied. To most, Station's voice would sound unemotional as ever, but Tisarwat had spent enough time serving under Fleet Captain Breq and Mercy of Kalr to pick up the subtle differences. Station was pleased. 

"Inviting a friend for tea and then having you pack up my old clothes doesn't seem very hospitable," Piat said, though her expression was bright. 

"Cleansing you of past influences sounds exactly what a friend should do." Tisarwat thought of this morning's cast and looked sideways at Piat, just as Piat had looked at her earlier. "I hope that the robe you are wearing wasn't at Raughd's command."

"It's not, but why?"

"You're very beautiful in it," Tisarwat said plainly, all her poetry deserting her at the critical moment.

"'A flower is not itself until it blooms,'" Piat quoted back to her, and their gloved hands touched, lightly, over some expensive frippery as it went into the container. 

It was almost 2600 hours by the time they had finished and Piat finally made the promised tea. She served it with translucent sweet disks with a citrus flavour, and it was more exquisite than any tea Tisarwat had tasted, in either lifetime, though she had the discernment to realise that this was the company rather than the tea. 

As she stood to leave, Tisarwat rested her hand on Piat's arm, mere millimetres from the top of her glove where her warm flesh lay exposed. 

"Thank you for your kind hospitality." Tisarwat held Piat's gaze, infusing her formal words and her touch with all that she felt. 

Piat placed her powerful, gentle hand over Tisarwat's. "You are welcome here, always."


End file.
